Now is the time, I’ve decided, for another round of glitch art using Audacity. I tried it before using wrestlers; this time, we’re using lettering – a knock-off I cut a few months back, based on a certain wheel-based game show. Maybe, one day, I’ll see to actually completing said project on said game show.
It’s kind of appropriate, as messing around with Audacity in this way is very much a blind spin of the wheel; you might have a vague idea of what’s going to come out, but you simply can’t know for sure. But still you try, and in turn, end up with about a hundred exports after spending the whole afternoon playing with it.
Here are some of my favourites. Some have had a bit of a helping hand from Photoshop, adjusting colours and contrast, but at their heart they are all products of Audacity’s editing tools.
It is quite a fun process, thanks to that element of surprise.
If you want to have a go, the tutorial here is quite helpful, even if many of the pictures seem to have disappeared.
My apologies for any fried eyes and headaches brought on by the colours used. I don’t normally go this mad, tending to stick to black and white, but felt like colour was rather important this time around.
Well, hello you – how are we? I’m still here, just about. There hasn’t been much excitement happening at this end and the summer was very much one to forget.
A friend of mine has been working on some pixel art lately, and this compelled me to look back at some of the stuff I made in years past. That, combined with a quick session of WrestleFest, resulted in what we have here; it’s just another way of showcasing some of my sprite attempts – in this case, the Undertaker ones – on a different platform.
While there are no new sprites in here – and Gene Okerlund reporting from his desk is taken directly from WrestleFest itself – it was some much-needed video editing practise. I got a version rendered and uploaded to YouTube, only to be reminded on publishing that the Shorts player has the title and icons slapped on top of the video, rendering my text unreadable. To say I was annoyed would be an understatement! That’ll teach me for jumping in. I had to readjust the whole composition, which ended up taking about two hours, and upload again; you could say it was quite the undertaking if you wanted to. But I got there in the end.
Now that I have the framework, I may redo it with some of my other sprites, so keep an eye on YouTube if you’re that interested.
The idea for this just came to me while watching a review of a top-down, maze-style Batman for the TurboGrafx-16 (PC Engine), based on the 1989 film. Other than some impressive cutscenes between levels, the game, while not terrible, wasn’t anything amazing; these days, it appears to be remembered as an “interesting” novelty – if it’s remembered at all.
So, why not take one of the most popular games of all time and see how it looks that way?
I cut a screenshot of Batman into a grid and used this as the basis for my graphics, with the addition of diagonal walls for some added “wow” factor – it’s 1993, guys, Wolfenstein is so last year! It was quite fun trying to make smaller, more pixelated counterparts of famous Doom textures and I like how some of them translate to the smaller scale. Seasoned players may note the lack of the tan wall textures that were ever-present in the game’s first episode; I did attempt them, as you can see below, but I don’t think I did it justice. Too wide.
The monsters themselves were admittedly just scaled down versions of the original sprites, cleaned up a little.
Next, I made a “maze” using the base walls (those yellow ones at the top) before layering over with texture. Shadows and lighting were then layered over that to create the final image. I’ll let you decide whether a working game in such a style would have been a success.
Here’s how it would crop on the actual console, depicted at twice the native resolution, and without consideration for any kind of HUD or status bar:
Finally, here’s a review of the Batman game that inspired me:
In yet another mockery of legendary TV presentation, I attempted to recreate the 1988 Anglia Television flag ident. A somewhat divisive rebrand, seeing off the Anglia knight after so many years, it is however one of the more memorable ones for me, having grown up in the nineties. Mr. Bean and Interceptor are what spring to mind upon seeing this.
Achieving a faithful flag would mean delving into those fearsome cloth and simulation effects for the first time for a while, although, saying that, it wasn’t actually too hard to get the flag in place. It’s funny how I remember these things from seven years ago but can’t remember what I did last week. But I’m sure that’s not just me.
As you can see, once the flag was flying it took a fair bit of wrangling, and there were some unpredictable and hilarious results. But eventually, something reasonable came out in the wash. I do think it could do with a bit more oomph with regards to the turbulence, but it seemed to be a very fine line to tread. It was a lot of trial and error adjusting wind speed, turbulence, gravity, lift and more. I can’t say I really knew what I was doing!
One setback was that fixing the side of the flag in place meant that it couldn’t be moved, so I had to settle for the static version of the ident; originally intended was a version wherein segments move into place to form the flag. It still allowed me to alternate the segments, which was done using multiple alpha layers fading into one another, removing the pieces as required to create a sequence.
For a day’s work, it has come out quite well. I’m definitely going to return to it, to see if I can improve the flag’s motion, and also see if I can find a way to create the “proper” version with pieces moving in.
It must be nearly twenty-five years since I first played Doom. I was very young at the time, I hasten to add. When I wasn’t terrified by the screaming, trumpeting monsters, I was quite taken in by the scale and atmosphere of the levels; how the corridors descended into darkness, and windows looking out towards distant, undiscovered areas. It was fun just to explore.
However, much as I tried, I never really got far at all with custom maps. I might cobble together a staircase, then try and make a door, and promptly give up when said door disappears into the floor, never to be seen again. I would be left ever so slightly dejected, knowing that gamers in 1994 could make these things work, yet here I was twenty years or so later, struggling.
But not this time! I fancied having another go, using the newer Ultimate Doom Builder and lump editors to replace textures. Whilst I have yet to actually make a half-decent map (the header image shows one that is complete in that you can start and finish, but it’s absolutely not half-decent), I have been experimenting with various features.
How about a custom Batman ’89 HUD? This took longer than I’d care to admit, having to make and replace every number, and all frames of the iconic Doomguy status bar face. Also shown are some attempts to recreate the defaced museum artworks, though I’ve a feeling they might be just a little too big.
Onto some architecture. I’ve always preferred the bleak, “creepy corridor” feel of the original Doom. Doom 2 seemed to be geared towards action and added some interesting monsters, but I felt much of the level design and texturing was a step down. Needless to say, I’m working with the 1993 game’s assets, and very much taking inspiration from there.
Doom is probably best remembered for the “techbase” aesthetic of episodes one (the widely-distributed shareware episode) and two, set in Phobos and Deimos moon bases. Here are some rooms where I experimented with that aesthetic, as well as features like stairways, switch-operated lifts and lighting sectors. The leftmost image above is reminiscent of the starting room of E2M7: Spawning Vats, one of the most atmospheric levels in the game and still a favourite.
It feels like a very time-consuming process and I have certainly not mastered texture alignment yet, but it is satisfying to see some spaces coming together.
Brutal Doom already exists, but I wonder if Brutalist Doom would be a hit? That’s if it hasn’t already been attempted at some point in the last thirty years.
And here we have what obviously isn’t a booby trap, nothing suspect about this room at all… let’s just go and grab that powerup…
Argh! It has been a lot of fun learning how to set up and choreograph various tricks and traps to test your unsuspecting player.
This has been, by far, my most productive outing with the level editors. I now feel as if I have the knowledge to make a level – I suppose now I just have to think of an interesting concept! Perhaps if I actually get to the point of completing something half-decent, I’ll upload it and show it off.
It’s fascinating to look back at the early versions of Doom and see the game we know taking shape, thirty years ago now. I have found myself referring to these in my experiments as much as the finished product, as I feel they’re part of the game’s DNA.
Another year, another Christmas, and another mad rush trying to put a card together. I probably should take care of them in July or something, but you know how it is… I’d miss the mad rush! Have fun making some sense of that. Of course, as artists and creators yourselves, you’ll know that sometimes a mad rush can lead to better results. I’ll let you be the judge in this instance. I rather like the colours at least; it rather makes me think of Quality Street wrappers and the “homemade 3D glasses” effect. The cool kids will know what I’m talking about.
I must admit to not feeling overly festive this year, but then, I feel like I’ve said that a lot in recent years. Perhaps it’s because these are trying times, or perhaps I’m turning into a grumpy old sod. I’m kidding, of course. I may be a grumpy sod, but it’s perfectly okay to not really be feeling it of a given year. The main event has yet to come and could change everything, and even if it doesn’t, we’ll be here again before you know it.
Of course, my malaise has not put me off Christmas music, which infiltrated my listening at the start of the month in its usual effort to inject some festivity, but is just a case of enjoying some good, warm music regardless. It had been quite a few years since I heard this classic – thank you, Spotify. Enjoy, and best wishes, from me to you, for the holiday season and beyond.
Letters play once again. This time, a trip back to the world of brutalism and its – as the name would imply – brash, hard-faced aesthetic. I am a fan.
Ironically, this dalliance began as something similarly geometric but rather more elegant, slicing up octagons and trying to create letters with very slender and narrow lines. At this moment I found myself wanting something bolder, not a headache, so I decided to leave it for further exploration at some other time, perhaps. Perhaps not.
The most fun had here was with the texturing, a hangover from the Twenty-Six Spins challenge of yesteryear, of which brutalism was a highlight. While the simple forms have an appeal of their own, it’s those grimy, utilitarian facades that really play to the theme.
And, of course, the nature of these letters leaves them open to the iterative process. The bars, stems and other assorted body parts can be thickened or narrowed to create diversity without losing the overall vibe. There seems to be a trend these days of using different sizes and weights together in typography so, there we go, I’m in with the crowd.
Later, I spotted that flipping the “R” made rather a nice “Y”. I like it when possibilities bring themselves to the fore.
Indeed, as often happens, this ended up pretty much driving itself. I get great reassurance from that, more and more as time goes on. It’s always fun.
Following on from the snowy conifers, we have a rather different take on the snappy winter weather, and a subject making its welcome return. Rejoice, the first windmill in over a year! And even that one was just an animation of a model made in 2017. The last one before that was a drawing back in March 2020.
Well, I must confess this isn’t entirely new, either. In fact, it’s a repurposing of several elements. It’s my Post Mill model from way back in 2016 (which was very much inspired by Stanton Mill in Suffolk) decked out with new sails and a coat of paint. I then added some grids, randomly distributing squares and rectangles which use textures I created years ago but still really enjoy playing with. While I have applied them to the mill model, using the favoured frontal projection, I really like creating bumpy, displaced 3D textures and sending them to a two-dimensional plane. That might sound counter-productive or plain silly, but the results are quite exciting to me. I’m a sucker for that harsh, icy aesthetic, and this method creates it in such a way that I probably couldn’t draw or paint, even if I tried. It’s possible that the end result is a little heavy-handed with the squares, but I do enjoy the frosty vibe. It’s not often I “frame” work, either, but I felt like it added a little something in this instance.
How nice to spin a few old bits and bobs into something new.
Here’s a curious little programme about windmills from more than half a century ago:
Brrr! Or not so brrr to be accurate, as it’s relatively mild here, the thick fog not really creating much of a marshmallow world or winter wonderland. There’s certainly not much of a chill placed in my heart; indeed, there’s something special about these days as we count down to the main event. A cosiness sets in at some indeterminate point. Possibly when all the shopping is done.
As the time to put together a Christmas card drew ever closer, I kept telling myself that, this time, I was going to try something more traditional; slower. A nice landscape drawing, maybe, or an intricate voxel model. Well, that turned out didn’t it? It’s always the way. There must be an angel, quite a mischievous one, playing tricks on me, but far from being a thorn in my side, they guided me to something different. I enjoyed it, and I guess that’s all that matters.
A peaceful, safe and happy holiday season to you all. Fill the bowl, roll out the barrel, and sweet dreams of your perfect winter wonderland.
Nerds of a certain age, rejoice! GamesMaster is back after almost twenty-four years, with a considerably longer running time and considerably fewer nob jokes. What’s more, the legendary Sir Trevor McDonald has succeeded Patrick Moore as the computerised couch potato, the titular Gamesmaster.
There isn’t much more to this little experiment; struck by once again seeing the lovely gothic ‘M’ which has ever adorned the GamesMaster logo, I fancied playing with some similar letterforms. Nerds rejoice once more.
After the usual dithering to start off, it was quite fun trying to create a harder, more angular counterpart to the the traditional flourishes of old English lettering – though, on some occasions, it might have helped to actually deviate from my beloved grid. They look quite brutal and industrious. It may be worth a full-on revisit at some point, perhaps attempting to introduce some curves and arcs.
By the way, the first episode of new GamesMaster is pretty good! Having been let down by so many of these big comebacks, I wasn’t expecting much at all, but they’ve actually done a fine job of not tampering with a winning formula and maintaining the delightfully cringeworthy spirit of the original. Whether such a show needs to exist in 2021 is perhaps up for debate, but there are only three episodes in this series so I say just enjoy it while it lasts!
jaywalks 